Application for TZ
Username/Nickname: Rycca
AIM / IM / E-mail: moxispilot
Other characters: Severus Snape
Character Name: Abigail Williams
Series / Movie: The Crucible
Age: 17
From when: I'm bringing her in from her last appearance in The Crucible, in the year 1693.
Personality: Abigail has been described as having “an endless capacity for dissembling”. She has what is called a cocktail personality: she is able to change from a God-fearing Christian to a coquettish flirt to a murderous bully. She can pretend to be the a victim of an invisible attack of witchcraft when the need suits her (and depending on the audience), going so far as to turn her skin pale and ice cold with her fits.
When one tactic seems to be failing, she will quickly change to another and another again until it seems to be working in her favor. She is very intelligent (though uneducated) and has a seemingly endless catalogue of personalities upon which she relies to achieve her ends. She is not a sociopath; she is able to empathize with others, but she is extremely selfish and this prevents her from making the effort to place herself in another person’s shoes. She uses the small capacity for empathy that she does have to choose what side of her personality she will present.
She is a rebellious young woman who chafes against the rules of a Puritan society. She has no compunctions against sleeping with the husband of another woman or accusing innocent people of witchcraft to save her own hide, and no moral reservations about lying. When she is caught in a lie, she will not back down; she will, instead, continue to build upon it until it has become an entirely different story, or she will turn the situation around so that her accuser is at fault.
Abigail is also extremely charismatic. John Proctor, Reverend Parris, the court presiding over the witch trials, and the girls who followed her lead were all taken in by her personality, whether out of fear or love. She was able to convince an entire village that she was the finger of God, a lie which resulted in twenty deaths.
She is characteristically hyper-sexualized. She views the act of sex as a source of freedom and knowledge, and liberation from the constraints of her godly society. She thinks people who are restrained or prudish about sex are hypocrites, and has come to believe that the act itself is a source of power: it is something men will pay for and women fear. In some cases, she has fooled herself into thinking that sex can be equated to love - most specifically, the incident with John Proctor - but knows that is not always the case.
True friendships for Abigail are few and far between. There are people that she will use for her own devices, but there are not many who know her for the dissembler that she is and still like her.
There really isn't a negative act that could be considered out of character for Abigail; she has no problem with lying, stealing, murdering, promiscuity, or cruelty.
History:
Abigail Williams was born on July 12, 1675 in Salem, Massachusetts. At seven years of age, she witnessed the murder of her parents in the bed they shared: their heads were smashed by Algonquians during the first conflict of the French and Indian Wars. She was sent to live with her uncle, Reverend Samuel Parris, and his daughter, Betty, in Boston. When Betty’s mother, Elizabeth, passed away, Betty and Abigail were placed into the care of Tituba Indian, a Carib slave who came away from Barbados with Parris.
At the age of sixteen, Abigail entered the service of the Proctor household. During this time, she entered into an adulterous relationship with John Proctor. When his wife suspected, Abigail was turned out of the house and the rumor of her termination spread through the village. Abigail denied these accusations; however, she never lost her desire for Proctor. Her desire would lead to the downfall of an entire village.
In February of 1692, Abigail and a number of other girls (including her younger cousin) played at witchcraft in the woods near Salem, conjuring charms to make men love them. Abigail called for John Proctor, and drank the blood of a freshly-killed chicken to kill the man’s wife, Elizabeth. The girls then began to dance, at which point they were discovered by Reverend Parris. In a fright, Betty Parris and Ruth Putnam fell into a seemingly unconscious state. The town began to whisper of witchcraft, and Parris elicited a confession from Abigail that the girls did nothing but dance - “It were only sport!”
Not long after, when it was announced that Reverend Hale of Beverly would come to Salem to ensure that the devil was not in the village, Abigail tried to rouse Betty from her stupor. Betty awoke, and accused Abigail of witchcraft before trying to fly out the window. This drew the attention of the entire village, and during the commotion, Abigail spotted John Proctor and went to meet him in private. She confessed to him that Betty was only playing, and there was no witchcraft. However, when she tried to seduce him, he pushed her away, inciting her wrath. She returned to Betty’s room, and Tituba was accused of witchcraft. The woman was whipped until she confessed to signing the Devil’s book, and Abigail, seeing the attention Tituba received for her confession (and also a way to have John Proctor’s wife murdered), confessed to the same sin. The rest of the girls soon followed, accusing the most likely women of witchcraft first: Bridget Bishop, Sarah Good, and Sarah Osburn.
Over the next sixteen months, the girls, with Abigail Williams at the helm, were used as divining rods to ferret out the witches in Salem. Their accusations were based upon seeing the spirits of the accused come to torment them. During this time, Abigail accused Elizabeth Proctor of making a doll in her likeness and sticking it with pins. Mary Warren, who made the doll, denied the accusation and said it was she who place the pi in the doll for safekeeping. John Proctor forced her to speak out against Abigail; however, she was unable to explain how she and the other girls went into hysterics so easily.
John Proctor came forward and admitted to the adultery committed, and stated to the courts that Abigail was only trying to punish him for rejecting her. His wife was called into court to testify whether this was the truth, and she lied to save him, stating that he had never committed the crime of lechery. Abigail then took the opportunity to re-establish her sway over the court by accusing Mary Warren of witchcraft. Mary then panicked and accused John himself of it, saying he had forced her to testify against Abigail.
John was arrested and Abigail, fearing for his life, stole half her uncle’s annual salary and went to John in the prison where he was kept. She offered to barter him passage on a ship bound for Barbados, but John replied that the next time they met, it would be in Hell. Abigail left, running away to Boston.
In the infamous witch trials for which Abigail was partly responsible, 19 men and women were hanged, and one man (Giles Corey) was crushed to death.
Abilities / Powers: None.
Sample Journal Entry:
(From the trial-run in Dear_Mun)
Goody Mun,
We've not been in discourse but a short while, speakin' friendship and kindness. Where is a soft word for me now? There's talk of prison ships. Will you blacken my name and bid me sit with them that sin against God, then?
Will you be sendin' me to the gallows?
Oh, it is some reddish work.
I am accused for a whore and a liar - aye, and worse - but I say I am neither. There be no blush about my name and no mark against my good character. I were an upright woman in Salem village.
I am innocent to a murderer.
I go to God for the soul that tells such weighty falsehoods against me.
Sample RP:
Abigail peered out of her room, a look of bewilderment on her face. The door did not lead to other rooms in her uncle’s home in Salem, but to a long corridor lined with many doors - some of them unlike any doors she had ever seen before in her life. She peered left and right, then stepped out, half expecting the hall to dissolve and leave her in a waking state as had happened so often before. On those nights, she had searched for John Proctor.
But that was long ago; John Proctor was dead and buried by now, and, if Abigail knew herself well enough, so was she. So what, then, was this place? Hell? No, this was nothing like the fiery pit her uncle had so often preached at Sunday service. This was just a hallway. She saw nothing of interest, nothing to point her in any particular direction, and so she turned back to her room once more.
It was then that a little sign caught her attention. The lettering had little meaning to her, but an arrow pointed to her left. She close the door gently, decisively following the direction indicated by the sign, and came to a large, open room filled with strange structures. On one of these structures was a woman, dressed so scantly it made Abigail blush at the sight; she seemed to be running, though she remained in one place. Abigail stole glances at the woman from time to time from the doorway, trying to remain inconspicuous.